James Bond: Skyfall part 4
James Bond’s aim is untrue. The bullet from Bad Guy is apparently pulling on his shooting muscles. Worse, he’s being subjected to a psychological exam. Parallels to Christopher Nolan’s Batman resonate as the psych exam is administered in an interrogation room eerily similar to the one in The Dark Knight. The psych guy looks like a Freudian out of central casting, and we can sense Bond’s eye-rolling dismay as he subjects himself to this humiliation. He knows, also, that an authority figure of some sort, probably M, is watching from behind the glass. So his answers aren’t exactly honest. They’re a performance.
The first word, “gun,” Bond replies “shot,” to remind whoever is watching that he’s in the field, taking real risks, not wasting time hiding in a bunker. Then “agent,” which Bond answers with “provocateur.” Assuming he’s not referring to the lingerie line (although, why not), he’s referring to an agent who “seeks to discredit or harm another by provoking them to commit a wrong or rash action.” Which would seem to be a reference to M, who spurs people to commit wrong or rash actions on a regular basis, most recently with telling Eve to shoot Bond. The word “woman” prompts “provocatrix,” which, unless a simple echo of “agent provocateur,” suggests that Bond sees himself a victim of temptation, manipulated and helpless before a woman’s wiles. (Including M, but more likely women in general — he cocks an eyebrow while saying it.) “Heart” prompts “target,” which refers both to his recent scrape with death (we could say that Bond would be dead now, except his heart is in the right place), but also his license to kill. “Bird” prompts “sky” (rather than “woman?”), “M” prompts “bitch.” Which, if I’m reading the familial tracing of Skyfall correctly, means that Bond is a son of a bitch. “Sunlight” brings Bond to “swim,” perhaps casting him back to Turkey, or plunging down out of the sky into the river, or perhaps back to that lovely day in Casino Royale, when Bond emerged from the surf like Aphrodite in a reversal of Ursula Andress’s entrance in Dr. No. “Moonlight” prompts “dance,” although it’s hard to imagine Bond dancing in the moonlight, “murder” prompts the sly, demure “employment.” Not “job,” mind you, but “employment.” Which implies that murder isn’t his job, exactly, but is a career opportunity. A job is something you do for someone else, employment is something you trade for a skill. The difference subtly implies that Bond, should he decide to do so, could easily leave this rat maze and go murder for some other people, or for himself. Except that “country” prompts the adamant response “England,” which tells us that Bond is, beneath it all, a patriot. The word “Skyfall,” which obviously isn’t a word the audience is familiar with, prompts the response “Done,” at which point Bond terminates the exam. On the one hand, he’s refusing to be the dancing monkey; he knows that this examination is a rigged game and he won’t play. On the other hand, he is also “done” with Skyfall, as we will come to learn. (M and Mallory and Tanner watch from behind the glass, a little trio of power: M knows that Bond is giving his answers directly for her benefit, he doesn’t know that he’s also humiliating her in front of Mallory, and he doesn’t know that she can’t defend herself because it would mean exposing herself to Tanner, her junior.)